Key word here is "promote". But it is very rare thing. First you need to be good writer, next, good director, next good location selection, next you must know good actors, next you must be good camera man, being composer and performer is also necessary, and on top on this you must already know bunch of guys with reputation and influence, have good money reserves and be promotional genius to push it. Yes, this is why earth can be lone habitable planet in universe :-)

If you're talking about getting into big Hollywood movies, there are three kinds of jobs for filmmakers: Crew, Keys and Above The Line.

Crew are the working stiffs, like ACs, Grips, Scripties, etc. They get paid well on big pictures, but they are mostly viewed as interchangeable. A few directors rehire the same crew, but most have such a long interval between films that it isn't practical. Crew doesn't get much creative input into the production, but you can buy a house and send your kids to college.

Keys are the Department heads: The DP, the Production Designer, the Creature Shop Supervisor, the VFX Supervisor, etc. These are often crew members who aggressively went after the leader position in their department. Keys make even more money, and get to collaborate with the filmmakers to make the movie happen. They do not orginate or control the production.

Above the Line refers to a line on a budget topsheet that separates "creative" from "technical" people. Don't blame me, they drew that line in the 1920's, and it's been there ever since. Above The Line is where the Actors, Producers, Director and Writer are listed. These are the people who have the most influence over the creative content of the film.

If you want to be an Above The Line filmmaker, you have to create something that either (a) makes so much money that poeple want you to work for them so they can make money, or (b) create something so obviously appealing and entertaining that they want to make money from it themselves.

That means writing a script, or finding a great script and making a movie, or making a bunch of shorts or spots that are so engaging that they inspire the Suits.

It's not called "show art," it's called "show business." The way you break in is you make stuff that convinces the business people that you can make money for them. As long as you make money, you get to keep working. That's how Above The Line works.

Look at how many young directors came out of commercial spots and music videos. They get a lot of experience, and the results can be very compelling and cinematic. The other source of directing talent is screenwriters. if you write enough hit movies, you can ransom a script and force them to give you a break. Ron Howard did the same thing with acting. He built up a big acting career, then went to Roger Corman with a lot of short films and agreed to star in a low-budget picture in exchange for directing another one. Corman famously said "if you do a good job on this one, you'll never have to direct for me again." He was right.

If you are young and without significant overhead (wife/kids/debt/alimony), I recommend moving to Los Angeles and getting a job getting coffee at a studio production company. You will learn how the business works, and will meet other young, hungry people who will become your co-conspirators in the years to come.

If you want to be a filmmaker, the two best things you can do is make a lot of films as soon as you can, and learn to write well. Practice is the only thing that will make you into a pro-level director. (Spielberg directed dozens of shorts as a youngster, and even a feature. Then he directed TV for several years before directing DUEL.)

Short is better than long, unless you have the money to make a great low-budget feature. Making short films and writing short scripts is the best practice, and as you get better, people will see your potential. You learn the most after you've finished the project and have shown it to an audience. That's when you really figure out what doesn't work, and how you need to do it differently next time.

Believe it or not, the suits in Hollywood are desperately looking for talented people to make blockbuster movies. They just want it without any risk. You have to show them that you can do it before they will hire you. Even indie film companies that make arthouse content want you to prove that you won't waste their money.

Keep asking yourself how you can make more movies in a year. Keep comparing your movies with movies you love and ask how you can make yours better. Keep showing your work, even though it hurts sometimes.

Steve Martin said in an interview that he gets asked all the time for career advice, and he said that he tells everyone his secret, but nobody wants to hear it. Here's his secret:

"Become so good that they can't ignore you."

@RyanPW

Ok my two cents-

After 3 years of doing nothing as an undergraduate in Kansas but drinking with my friends and going to see bands, I sent my art portfolio to School of Visual Arts in NY and got into the school, despite my 9Z probationary low grade point level. I took art classes and one film theory class, all with the goal of transferring to NYU.

After 1 year my grade point went up and I got in for summer classes at NYU. I made a bad film and got accepted to the film program where I started to make better films that sucked in nicer ways. There were two classes of film students, the craft folks and the chair folks. The craft folks work on anything to get their skill levels up and the chair folks try to get them to work on their films so they can sit in a chair with their name on it.

I never considered myself a chair folk, I liked technology too much. I started doing AC work and I really enjoyed the Zen like quality of it. But like most, I was there to make my own films, but my tactic was to be at least competent at all the essential skills so that I could be self-sufficient and make stuff rather than search for money. This was not the norm.

After graduation was the usual “well, what do I do now?”. I decided to stay with the video department (which most of the film students looked down on) because one of my teachers was so great at explaining tech. I worked on the edit room floor and I was the first person to edit a film on a video system for negative matchback. It was hell on a CMX Edge unit. I stayed there nights and weekends and lost my really hot punk girlfriend because of it.

From there I went on to work at a commercial house editing demo reels and working 2nd AC on 35mm rigs. Didn't last long I got into a fight with this Australian pretty boy P.A. So I went back home for a while and shot some things with a Bolex. When I came back I interviewed with Spike Lee's company, did some TV extra work and finally landed a job in a big online post production house in midtown.

That was where everything moved forward for me. On work hours I was an assistant editor, at night I stayed in the rooms until I figured out how to control it. Once the boss found out I was practicing, he of course gave me his “pet projects” that needed to be edited. I did them, got better and moved into a night position as editor.

Back then online editing was an expensive gig, with multiple interfaced to do what we do now on a mac. But the editing room is where you get to spend time with producers, directors, DP's and get to know them far better than if you were a P.A. getting coffee. I'm not that good a schmoozer anyway (see above fight) but anyone can be genuine after 12 hours in a room together.

Anyway, from there I made a lot of money and bought an Aaton S16mm rig and started shooting low budget music videos. I showed them to the owner of the music video company I edited with and he agreed to represent me. I still worked nights as an editor, shot the videos on the weekends and brought them back to my company to do the final edits. Then, on the basis of my work, I got invited back to NYU's graduate program where I made my thesis film “Fly”. It won some awards and got screened by Robert Altman at the DGA screening in L.A. He invited me out to L.A. so I loaded up my Honda and drove to L.A. with my two cats. I edited a film and a TV pilot for him and got representation at an agency. I went on to screen my feature films and shorts at Sundance, LAIFF , Cinequest and the Hamptons; me, just a Korean American dude from Kansas. You can do it.

The story takes some twists from there and I find myself in China now. I don't want to make this any longer, so if you want to know more, let me know. I'll just say this- despite the presence of Silverlake hipsters with DSLR's this is a great time to be a filmmaker if that's what you want to do. If you want to get past the golden gates to the corporate big-time, well, then you'll have to do it the old 20th century way. But if you don't need that accolade to justify your skills, there are many ways now to make what you want get it out and get it screened. One of my British students is here on Personal-view and he's been kicking ass on Vimeo and his short is doing well on the festival circuit, so don't dismiss online presence, unless you're expecting it to get you a call from Speilbergo.

The world is now full of craft people in the chair, and to me that's a great thing. It was always what made me feel out of place in the old order, but now I'm in the right group of people. Look at all the people that responded to your post; great experienced people here with good tips, but you'll have to stumble and zig-zag to your own path when eventually you'll find something that just feels right. Then do that for a while until it brings you a new opportunity or you get married. Then you won't have any more choice. Now quit reading forums and go make something!

If you want to see my NYU short, I just put it up on Youtube- http://www.youtube.com/user/LincolnlogFilms?feature=mhw5

@ahbleza

Part 2 involves spaceships...

So what does a PA make? $28,000 a year, or about $2,300 per month, if you are lucky. But even this number is high. When you first start out working as a freelancer, work will not be consistent. At least not until you build your network of referrals. A more realistic number would be around $15,000, or $1,250 per month. At these income levels, it is easy to see that you are going to need to figure out a way to make more money in order to live and pay your school bills. Oh, and don't count on living in LA without roommates either, as the average cost of a one bedroom apartment is $1,350 per month. I'm not saying that it can't be done. It can. However, it isn't going to be as easy as the school's literature and the hype of Hollywood may be leading you to believe.

Via: http://www.ryanewalters.com/Blog/blog.php?id=651082258626795742

Most of this guys also do not tell you that it is highly competitive market, with constantly lowering number of positions and constantly rising number of guys who are ok to work for cheap.

I already said in other topics that personal-view.com must move from common "film festival wanna be" trend into strict and pragmatic way - how to make money using your skills.

@mpgxsvcd

I can tell you that two of my students from S.Korea, one British and the other German have done very well from Vimeo exposure. Stu, just posted his 2nd year project, a period war film "A Day in 1954" shot with the GH2. It looks great, he's getting savvy at Resolve. His first film at the university "Hooked" won a Vimeo award as well as awards at many film festivals.

Nils Clauss recently just uploaded a documentary gig he got to shoot following a group of German musicians to play in North Korea. Nils had already been a finalist in a music video competition at Vimeo as well. Now, these guys just add these accolades to their resumes, which the possible clients can immediately go check out. It's just more clips for your reel. From the North Korea documentary, he just got a gig following around a legendary installation artist in Korea, based on his photography work and videos on Vimeo.

Stu's "Hooked"-

Nils Clauss "Orchestral Maneuvers in the North"- (5dmk3) Stu and Nils- SINCITY music video winner Genero.tv competition

Students like these make all bullshit that goes along with academia worth going through.

Are they on their way to Hollywood? I don't know, but there are many ways to work professionally now, a new paradigm is emerging, and it's good for all of us. We're in new territory now. You're right, you just got to get out there and make something, and learn from your screw ups. That's how I know I'm still learning.

@islanders66 I can tell you that post production is a great place to learn about structure and storytelling. Yes the tech is fun and you can spend hours on forums debating the best graphics card, but learning how different content requires different structures is the best thing about cutting. When you are at the bottom, you work on everything; music videos, grocery store spots, sports promos. At first you just hate it, you want to work on movies, but I got to tell you, it all helps. The lowest of the lows for me when I shot a stocking/pantyhose product shoot and had to edit it. Yikes. But after a while, there wasn't anything I couldn't work out. And that moves you up in pay scale.

Now on your own time, you work on your narrative chops. You collaborate, do shorts like AdR suggests. What I've found out most in the edit room, is that I can fix anything, make it better. Because you've seen it all before. So, keep cutting, and take notes. What made me able to survive off the leash of big money was that I could handle almost all of the post myself. Yes it's exhausting but what else would you rather be tired doing?

While your peers are trying to find a sponsor or network, you'll be learning how to control your own images. I can tell you the people who concentrate more on networking and getting their foot in the door, may get the opportunity before you do, but it's who can pull it off successfully that moves forward.

If you want to get some feedback on your work, PM me, you can come by my new site. It's a place I set up for my students and filmmaker friends so we can keep in touch and share our works-in-progress. My students are from all over the map.

Now more than ever, there is no clear career path to feature film directing. As mentioned by @bheath above, Hollywood's current trend is focused on discovering directors with VFX-driven storytelling skills. While I'm currently learning Maya, etc., I'm also taking a somewhat novel approach to breaking in: directing traditional narrative shorts that seem suicidally ambitious on paper. Rather than waste my time shooting boring white people in diners or pointless time-lapse videos, I'm aiming for John Ford, for David Lean. And signs of success are starting to appear.

I'm currently finishing post on a short film titled 'Mulberry', which is based on a true story about a black miner's confrontation with racism in a 1946 phosphate mine. When approaching potential investors during pre-pro, the conversation stopped as soon as they heard "1946" and "mine". And there's no better producer repellent than the phrase "period piece". Worse still, there's a dangerous stunt involved. I was told this project demanded a budget of at least $150K and understandably so, assuming I could do the impossible and gain access to a mine in the first place (there is a reason you've probably never seen a film set in a mine: they're notoriously closed off to the public. It's easier to gain permission to shoot at Chernobyl).

Ultimately, I turned to Kickstarter, raising $10,600 in a mere 20-days. After KS took their 10% cut, I was left with $9600 to shoot my $150K minimum script. Succeeding on Kickstarter is the second most difficult thing I've done. The most difficult thing? Gaining access to a mine. After months of hitting brick wall after brick wall, I called the owner of Florida's largest sand mine until his secretary was ready to murder me. After an initial rejection, I finally convinced him by offering to write a part for his wife.

So with no budget to speak of and a pathetic three day shooting schedule, I set out to direct a period piece in a hazardous location, including a dangerous stunt. Worse still, I was in the processing of moving to a new apartment during pre-production. I had no idea what I was in for until 30 people arrived on set expecting direction from me: the rich guys were right, I just slit my own throat.

But we made it. And with surprisingly good results. I look forward to sharing the Vimeo link when it's finished.

Will 'Mulberry' launch my directing career? That remains to be seen. But good things are already afoot even before the film is finished. After hearing about how I made an ambitious period piece with toothpicks, a Florida-based producer contacted me about potentially directing a feature film written by a Nicholl's Fellow screenwriter in the $3-5MM budget range. I also had a telephone call with one of Christopher Nolan's producers, who offered some great advice. Most promising of all, there's an excellent chance I'll be meeting with a legendary Hollywood producer who has produced award-winning Southern period pieces and is famous for finishing ambitious projects ahead of schedule and under budget. You can see why someone would refer me to him.

To be clear, this is not a Cinderella story (yet), and I don't expect these conversations to elevate me above the poverty level in themselves. But it's definitely confirmation that I'm on the right track. Some bits of advice:

1. Make your projects personal. Regrettably, the antagonist in 'Mulberry' is based on my great-grandfather. Hearing about the terrible things he did in the event that inspired the short scarred me as a child. I was personally driven to tell this story and it shows in the final work. But controversial projects have consequences. After 'Mulberry' was announced, I was disowned by family members and attacked by the white supremacist Stormfront.org, who labeled me a "race traitor", "automaton in service of Jewry", and far, far worse: http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t900497/

But controversy can lead to...

1. Getting local press for your short. After the KS campaign launched, I was able to convince four newspapers in Central Florida to publish articles on 'Mulberry'. The neo-Nazis' smears were very helpful in this regard. You can do the same thing. All you need is a hook that works well as a slugline. This press didn't necessarily drive KS pledges like I'd hoped, but it did catch the interest of film industry pros in Florida, including a retired A-list casting director.

Which brings me to...

1. Making friends with casting directors. There are few professionals who hold more sway over producers, directors, and especially agents than casting directors. Agents do whatever they can to get into the good graces of casting directors, as that leads to booked roles for their clients. If you want a top agent, it's helpful to impress a reputable casting director, many of whom have nurturing personalities and can be the best evangelists for the talent they discover. That has certainly been the case for me. The casting director who contacted me eventually offered to cast our extras for free and hanged out on set to shoot publicity photos. This relationship has paid off big time, as she is a close, personal friend of the above mentioned legendary producer, in addition to having been his casting director on many films. She says that our short looks just as good as the big budget features she's worked on (an insanely flattering lie, but I'll take it), and is going to champion me to the producer. She is a wonderful friend to have.

2. Make a sci-fi short that showcases VFX skills. It's obvious which way the wind is blowing. Uploading a strong VFX short to YouTube can result in more Hollywood work than dozens of top tier festival screenings. As such, my next short will likely be an FX-driven dystopian kids' movie (think the Goonies trapped in Gilliam's Brazil).

3. Don't assume anything and have the courage to ask. The most shocking fact about 'Mulberry' is not that it got made, but that I convinced the biggest rental house in Central FL to give us a crazy discount on a 1-ton grip truck filled with Mole-Richardson lights: $75 a day. I couldn't stop thinking it was a trap. But it wasn't and only took a polite inquiry.

4. Say "please" and "thank you". Seriously.

I'll post the short when it's finished. Please keep this great thread alive! We're all in it together.

@apriori Hollywood does not care about VFX skills. That is a perception created by the media and doesn't represent reality. Hollywood does not care about VFX. Vendors are already second class citizens and vendors without union representation are dogs to be kicked and fed feces.

The company that's going to take home the Oscar this year, that can do what no other studio on the planet can currently achieve, they just filed for bankruptcy. Hollywood won't bat an eye lash. They aren't totally to blame but their (Hollywood's) existence as the worst customers to ever be chained to had a lot to do with it and the VFX vendor's dangerous practice of having to depend on future work to pay for their current load of projects just isn't sustainable. They're but one name in dozens that fall every year. Chodes like one of FOX's previous post production supervisors regularly joked to anyone who'd listen that if he wasn't putting at least one FX facility out of business with each project he didn't think he was doing his job.

Here's a question for you: all those filmmakers that made a media splash with attention for their short film filled with eye candy visual effects...where are they now? Did they ever actually make that feature-length adaptation of their short and, if they actually did, did they ever pull off a follow-up? Hint: Neil Blomkamp doesn't count. He was already one of the most talented and successful commercial directors in South Africa when he made Tetra Vaal as one of several short subjects while not producing commercials slicker than we get, on average, here in the States.

IF, making FX is already a skill you have, by all means, use that to your advantage to give your film extra production value if you feel you must. But seeing this as a path to take, IMHO, that's taking a long, precarious detour for the wrong reasons.

Hollywood does not care about VFX skills.

Not directly... but they care about directors with actual skills outside of pretending like "they are artists".

I don't want to name names, but I heard personally, that a certain director, of a movie involving an man made of iron suit, was replaced on the 3rd installment because he lacked any actual skills. The DP and VFX supervisor basically made the whole movie, while the "director" would just pop in from time to time and say "looks good". The producers were pretty upset at this. And guess what the "directors" justification was? "Oh I'm a creative guy... I don't understand all this technical stuff." (i.e. almost everything in the film) So yea, allot of producers and studios are either hiring "writer directors" or "VFX directors" right now. apriori's assessment is accurate.

In 5 years, the directing position will most likely have absorbed DPing and VFX supervising... as the next generation of filmmaker have worked in these areas their whole lives and can grasp multiple jobs at once. I actually think having the director act as the VFX supervisor saves a TON of time and money on a film.

LOL, much of Tarantino's career is based on how not boring white people in diners can be, if you can actually write a script.

haha, good point!

Fede Alvarez got viral with Ataque de Pánico! on youtube

And now he has directed the Evil Dead remake.

Dan Trachtenberg went viral with Portal: No Escape

And now he is doing the Y-the last man comic book adaptation

I don't know about Fede Alvarez but Dan Trachtenberg has a commercial film background and family in the biz I think.

At the end of the day ALWAYS keep making stuff + get it it out there + luck + who you know + timing= maybe you have a shot

@dingeroz and now we have to see if they shot their wad, or if they have legs. The fact of the VFX and their amount got people's attention but it was the viral aspect that made anyone with a check book pay attention, make no mistake. Because what goes viral is still a mystery. There's marketing companies and corporations spending millions trying to "astro-turf" their own campaigns without any sort of consistent result.

@bwitz hah-hah, oh, well if a producer says so. Forget the fact that it makes no sense and is factually inaccurate. Forget the fact that their solution, if it were the case, is a stupid one considering who they chose and why they were supposedly making a change in the first place. But, okay, if some producer said so...

Regardless, Shane Black will definitely take things in a different direction...not by knowing diddly squat about big movie visual effects, since he doesn't, but he's a good writer and did a bang up job on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with, oh, lookee here, he made that movie with Robert Downey Jr. Hmmm....